Sunday, April 29, 2012

Does your cat
mind his own business? My cat Chopin
decided from the beginning that my business means HIS business—and he means
business. Forgive me for using the same
word four times in two lines, but this tuxedo cat could teach the Office of
Homeland Security their entire business in just a night or two.

That’s
exactly how long it takes him to secure my dwelling. Since he took over, not so much as a gnat
walks into this place without Chopin’s prompt notification. He found one securing a foothold on the wall,
and called my attention to this invisible invader immediately. He signals by waving his white-tipped tail as
he simultaneously digs into the molding.

Please notice
the advantage that Chopin brings to the practice of his profession. He doesn’t demand prostitutes. He accepts the rule they can’t hang out
here. He doesn’t drink alcohol. He lives onsite, and NEVER charges for
airline passage. He doesn’t fly—unless leaping
from counter to refrigerator counts. He accepts Purina Fancy Feast as pay, and
never complains.

On the other
hand, his coverage of security here shows a remarkable resemblance to the
weaknesses of his human counterparts in the US Secret Service. He’s not secret about his activities. In fact, you can find him any time you
want—getting into trouble. He hangs out
with my dog, and snatches any items not cemented to the counter as a treat for
his buddy.

Chopin’s
criminal history began with a light bulb.
I awoke to the sound of squeaking teeth on glass. EEk!
That sound shivered my nervous system!
I turned to look for the source: The dog lay next to me working on his
claim to a bright idea. The more he gnawed,
the more I wondered. He couldn’t have
climbed the shelves. Some scavenger gave
that dog a light bulb!

Chopin
continues to scavenge through the trash.
He’s not out for garbage—just for plastic that crinkles when he carries
it around like an extraordinary mouse, by the tail, of course. He could care
less what I place in the trash unless it provides a toy he knows he shouldn’t
request. Then, he thinks economy: Wouldn’t his tribe serve best where they ask
for least?

Should we
call this behavior “Secret Service Culture”?
The two of them work hand-in-glove.
First, the cat identified the stopper in the garbage disposal as a
trophy which the dog could chew without killing himself. Second, the cat stole that stopper every
stupid time I turned my back. Third, the
dog wouldn’t return this new benefit of his profession without a fight.

I restrained
the dog, applying his choke collar. I
grabbed that stopper and secured it in a drawer which the cat can’t open. There, I have also secured the dog’s talking
ball toy, which won’t shut up until it’s still as a mouse which the cat hasn’t
discovered—yet. Taken together, these two toys supply more than enough
provocations for incidents which might draw neighbors’ attention.

Chopin’s
latest trick involves chocolate—another South American no-no for creatures
treated like pets. He and the dog
immediately dive into the groceries, which they check for poison the minute I
drag the bags inside the door. The cat
waits until I place the chocolate milk containers on the counter. Then he attempts to remove the caps—until I
secure the contraband in the refrigerator, the Forbidden Land.

So, I know
from experience that Secret Service Agents need supervision. They’re dynamite on the enemy—when the enemy
isn’t THEM. All their skills mean that,
at any moment, they can turn into double agents. They can blackmail me for treats. If I don’t supply them, you don’t have to
worry about prostitutes. Cats and dogs
themselves will raise the roof!

Believe me,
Janet Napolitano receives my sympathy in grappling with scandals involving US Security agents in the Homeland or God-knows-elsewhere. Nevertheless, she doesn’t need to pay
two-legged rascals when four-legged security experts go begging at Rescue
Missions. The latter work nearly for
free, and know how to be ashamed of themselves.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

The woman
stared out of the advertisement at me: I
recognized her immediately. Piercing
eyes and a wicked smile dared me to write what I know about grandmothers and
wolves. The famous folktale drags Lil
Red Riding to Grandma’s house relentlessly, where the child expects to find somebody
waiting for baked goods—ill and helpless.

Before this
story begins, please note that the current Queen of the United Kingdom—Elizabeth
II—could brag if she wants about grandmother-hood. I haven’t seen it in the
press, if she does. What achievement
does grandmother-hood represent, aside from adding her genes to a pool? Her own mother—the Queen Mother—never waited
for baked goods, so far as I can recall.

So we come to
Lil Red Riding Hood skipping along through the woods. First, she’s wearing red
to alert every hunter within shot-range that this tourist must not be confused
with wildlife. That’s still the
practice, isn’t it, for tourists in wildlife preserves during hunting
season? Only this little girl takes no
chances with camouflage—she’s covered from head to knee in the color of blood.

Now, let’s
consider the back story villain: Lil Red
Riding Hood’s mother. Why didn’t she go
herself to visit her own mother? Visits
to relatives may be notoriously painful, but that’s no excuse for sending a
granddaughter on a mother’s mission. If
this particular grandmother had been ill abed, that woman would have flown
there, if need be—assuming Grandma loved her.

Aha! We now discover the principle of the Double—the
shape-shifting at work in both early and sophisticated narratives. The German Doppelganger, an exact double of a
person with usually sinister motives, waits in that bed for that little girl,
who does not know what her mother knows.
Grandma may or may not be sick, but she also may be as wicked an enemy
as Elizabeth I.

These two
queens—Elizabeth I and II—serve as the perfect illustration of doubles. Both exist over time, but the first proved to
be the most powerful monarch in English history; the second preserves the
monarchy by never showing her teeth.
Monarchs can be grandmothers, too—but, first and always, they function
as symbols of national unity. Bow or
return home.

Skipping
along with her basket of goodies, the child covered in blood has already met
her future. She expects to find a pleasant
old woman in that bed, lovely with the grace of age. Instead, Lil Red Riding Hood encounters the
truth: Ancestors rarely go gently into
that good night, as Dylan Thomas reminds us in “Do Not Go Gently into that Good
Night.”

In fact,
Thomas prays that they don’t. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” he
begs his father in his famous poem.
Children prancing around in the bewilderment of woods, though, do not
expect to come smack up against the realities of death and age. On the contrary, if they do a good deed, they
expect reward—a cookie, maybe?—and gratitude—a smile, at the very least.

The famous
folktale of Little Red Riding Hood survives because it offers a double
perspective, as well as a doppelganger.
Prance down that wood-path with an immature mentality—and you’ll get the
surprise of your life when you reach your destination. On her deathbed and grasping for life,
Grandma may be raging, all teeth and eyes.
The wolf has nothing on her.

Walk grimly
down that same path with the knowledge of the adult. Suddenly, Grandma must surrender to the
hunter in green, the color always worn by those who remain unseen in
woodlands. He knows wolves, and he knows
grandmothers. Both can be subject to
change in a flash from benign to malignant.
Threaten the succession of child to adult, and he appears.

A child like
Little Red Riding Hood cannot proceed successfully through the bewilderment of
maturity by believing that transformation does not hit us all. The wolf’s ferocity signals she must change
her expectations NOW. Thus love takes
the strangest forms when it wishes to warn us:
Grow up or grow down. Pack that
cape and pay the hunter. He won’t lie
about what you will discover.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Was
Charlie Sheen responsible for the Secret Service’s debacle in Colombia? This questionarises because this affair has Charlie Harper’s fingerprints
all over it. Two and a Half Men seems to
have turned into Twenty-Three and a Half Goofballs—but that’s only counting
through Sunday, April 22.

During the final
episodes of THM’s repetitive plotline, Ladies of the Evening, Afternoon, and
Whenever paraded in and out of Harper’s domicile. Even his nephew became numb to the double
entendre and sleazage. (a new word which
blends sleaze and cleavage, as only Sheen/Harper can)

The agent who set
off alarm bells in the Hotel Caribe followed Sheen’s favorite routine to the
letter. He advised everyone on
everything—and then got into a go-round with the spitting image of his mom. When will America admit that Charlie Sheen
needs a better agent and a better act?
Even psychotics like Rose have their obsessive limits.

It is unfortunate but not beyond understanding how two debacles could occur like anniversaries. On April 3, 2011, Reuter’s David Rooney reported “Charlie Sheen bombs in Detroit debacle.” Rooney quips: “Call it tiger blood or Adonis DNA if you will. Just don't call it entertainment.”

Just one year and eleven days later, this headline appeared in globalpost on April 14, 2012: “Bombs, Secret Service mar Obama's arrival in Cartagena for Americas summit.” America now needs to recognize that, so long as the US Secret Service imitates Charlie Sheen, they can expect similar reviews and fans’ big-time BOOS.

Comedy writers attempting to spoof her response to a
goofball secret agent have their work cut out for them.

To find comparable material, they will need to return to
the Pink Panther movies. There, pink didn’t stand for pretty, and it didn’t
mean ditzy dame. It immediately promised
movie lovers more of their favorite Ditzy Dude, Inspector Clouseau.

Ditzy Dude—Isn’t that the only reason a secret agent
would post his eyeballing claims to fame on Facebook?

Ditzy Dude—Isn’t that the only reason a secret agent
would also add his very own incomparable, original commentary on Facebook? “I was really
checking her out, if you know what i (sic) mean?" [the agent] wrote of his assignment guarding Palin, after
a friend commented on the picture posted in January 2009.How have
we waited this long for another Pink Panther movie? But this time, let’s get it out of Colombia,
and out of the presidential campaign.
Let’s get it into the theaters where it belongs.

With this new material and inspiration, the new one to
come will surely top them all!

Sarah Palin can play herself—if somebody can convince her
this role is worthwhile. She’s got the
glamour, dialogue, and demeanor to put those goofballs in their place, just as Capucine
did in the first series.

042212
Patrick B. Pexton flashes a warning red light on digital journalism in “The
Post Fails a Young Blogger.” Indicting his own publisher, the Washington Post,
he reveals a world where journalists must function like computers, or hit the
junk pile.

Bloggers
appear to be in the forefront of this trend.
Pexton describes a young blogger’s work load as typically involving the
production of almost six posts each day, with posts reaching a length, perhaps,
of five hundred words.

According
to Pexton, the young blogger’s challenge was not just length. Plagiarism waited like a shark, ready to pick
off the youngest and least experienced writers, who created aggregate articles
for blogPost, the Washington Post’s own foray into
covering news by blogging.

Thus,
without belaboring this second trend, Pexton reveals not only that traditional
papers are under stress to meet competition from the Web, but, in fact, they
already no longer exist. Blogging has
already transformed the way the Washington Post covers the news.

Pexton’s
dramatic quotations from Elizabeth Flock supply a much-needed reality check for
all working journalists in the digital era.
He notes: ”She said it was only a matter of time before she made a third
one [mistake]; the pressures were just too great.”

With
this admission, this columnist suggests that journalism, as we know it, has
already reached a dead end. What should
be a dream job turned into a nightmare.

Aggregate
sites like the Drudge Report and Slate Magazine have grown even while The New
York Times and the Los Angeles Times have struggled to survive. But at what cost are the aggregates driving
the traditional hard press out of business?

Pexton
does not lay this contradiction at the door of technology, but this writer
will. It may be marvelous to gape at
internet resources now; nevertheless, if the result is too many work products
for anyone to create or enjoy, what have we done?

Without
blinking an eye, the industry is killing off its up-and-comers. It is confusing people with machines and
giving machines the leadership role which belongs to humans. When machines can read what machines write,
the loop will close.

Whether
humans currently stand inside or outside that mechanized communications circle
may baffle even those supposedly in-the-know.
If the literacy rate keeps falling, will anyone play the blame game and
keep score? Machines: 1 Humanity:
0

Saturday, April 21, 2012

042112. Within
the past two weeks, two women have stepped into the American limelight, challenging
the assumption that the rodeo stars men, and women wait quietly for trouble to
begin. In these misadventures, men have
gotten themselves into trouble, it seems, and women had to step into the roles
of the cavalry act. Rodeos need the best
Rough Riders they can get.

First comes Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, appointed
by Gov. Rick Scott to sort out conflicts in the Trayvon Martin case, and send
it to a grand jury, or decide charges.

Next comes Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Paula
Reid, based in Miami, who yanked Secret Service agents out of Colombia, after a
fight with a prostitute foolishly went street-side.

Both women may remind readers of their famous
forerunners, who pulled pans out of the fire when things got too hot for the
men to handle previously. Then, too, the cowboys had to call upon the kitchen
sex to rescue them. These legendary
females include Annie Oakley, that All American Girl, and Joan of Arc. Sometimes male historians have called the
latter “crazy,” but not when they needed
her unique brand of leadership skills.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A
wing span eight feet wide? Is this the
creature that courted the Leda in Ovid’s rendition of “Leda and the Swan”? The story in the Los Angeles Times never
refers to the classical myth of the great swan who was Zeus in disguise, but
the proportions of the bird stun the reader.
Wings twice as wide as the bird’s height! For all of its four feet from foot to head,
it only weighs 30 pounds, on average, according to that article.

The
title announces the inevitable outcome when man takes on swan: “’Killer’ swan attacks Illinois caretaker
until he drowns.”

Who
should wonder that this animal can kill if it chooses? Those magnificent wings transform into shields,
clouds, and waves at the drop or shift of a feather. They harbor cygnets, plow the deep, and then
shift into daggers aimed in any direction.
No wonder, too, that the most famous ballet in dance history consists of
a tribute to this awesome beast.
Comparing the statistics, it becomes clear: This creature is almost all wings.

It
was this reader’s distinct privilege to grow up in the company of these
birds. On the tiny lake at the center of
Cassadaga, New York, these mythical animals turn up the minute the snow
releases them from their winter residence.
The impression created by their return is that they have come from the
snow—and will return to it when winter overwhelms the village. They are the snow, in all its killer capacity—and
beauty, too.

The
village next door, Lily Dale, New York, even reenacts the grandest ballet for
residents every time they walk down Dale Drive. At this next settlement, the swans swimming
on a second lake are black, black as the most perfect top soil—and the perfect
foil to the white of winter. Think of
obsidian in one location, and pearls in the next. Then, imagine both being available to the
traveler on foot who can span the distance without even overworking the
imagination.

Then
think of the poor human who got into a conflict with this bird in the LA Times
report. What chance did he have,
fighting for his life? Whole boats at
amusement parks take the form of this creature.
On carousels, you may mount one and ride, if you wish. The better part of wisdom would be: Don’t even try. They belong to the realm of Art, where
artists compete to render them in oil, marble, and everything but feathers,
because, who really understands feathers?

We
can crush feathers, preen feathers, and sock them together in a bed. Not once has humankind created a bird out of
these elements which could span eight feet and kill a man, if it took it into
its head or neck to do so. The necks of
such birds are used in combat between males, of course, and for attacking, if
they choose. But combine that lethal
garden hose with shields of wings and a rampant beak—what can a man do but go
under?

And
let him go under the waves. What will he
do there against paddling feet that can stand, grasp, or mount an assault upon
the air? The white flash we see as these
creatures mount the air should serve as a warning, which the classical authors
of mythology got right: We charge into
their territory—and they are infamously territorial—at our peril. The lake belongs to them, the winter and
summer, too. What remains for us to do
but shiver in their reflections?

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Since Bill
Maher’s vocabulary specializes in four letter words, here’s one to fit his
fix: JERK. He also applied a three letter word to a
portion of Ann Romney’s body which she slung into a saddle while struggling
with MS and cancer. And here’s another
four letter word which identifies the body part of Bill Maher which he needs to
remove from his oversize mouth right under his oversize nose: FOOT.

Once he does
that, maybe he can explain exactly how he graduated from Cornell
University. First, may we assume that
Freshman English professors at that august institution still teach levels of
diction? As in, when he is addressing
the next First Lady of the United States, it is unseemly, Bill, to refer to
parts of the anatomy which he has never encountered, since she is too polite
to put her foot you-know-where.

Second, he
really should stop referring to the former governor of Alaska with despicable
terms, too. He does know what “despicable”
means, doesn’t he—even if it contains TEN letters? OMG!
This rant—another four letter word!—is turning into a vocabulary lesson
for poor Bill, who could benefit from extending his diction to five letters, as
in TWERP. Who is he to attack Palin when
Bill hasn’t even been elected governor of late night TV?

Well, maybe
he has to do something to make viewers forget he probably struggled with Geography, as
well as Freshman English, at good ole CU.
A four letter word vocabulary doesn’t allow a student to learn much
about Alaska, which, for Bill’s benefit, this writer must note is larger than
Texas, and filled to its gills with oil and gas reserves. Now, who would trust Bill Maher to oversee
such resources, when he can’t even get his diction together for a little chit-chat
about housewives?

Furthermore,
another lesson he avoided in Freshman English was good ole rhetorical
fallacies. These occur in chapter two of
a standard reader in that class. One of
the most famous happens to be excessive generalizations, as in what does Bill
know about housewives anyway? He lumps
them all together because he’s never been around a single one of them when they
cleaned the toilets, where he left his diction.

Obviously, he
did master the Red Herring, as in, this is what a student talks about when he’s
failing the class, first, because he didn’t do his homework on Alaska, and,
second, because he never understood that this is an error—he’s not supposed to
model rhetorical mistakes for the guys in his fraternity who expect to find
every word he says funny. Bill, the words that any self-respecting writer cannot spell out on this website are NOT funny. Bill needs to take notes
so he won’t forget.

Third, and
most critical, Bill, the ad hominem attack is out of line, as in the student
fails Freshman English every single time he uses this device. It means that the speaker doesn’t know the
issues from a hole in the ground, so he attacks his opponent instead—by calling
her names. The names he needs to
remember are these: Ann Romney, Sarah
Palin, and Michele Bachmann. These women
possess outstanding vocabularies because they passed English while some Bill or
another was playing puppet for some king of his sleazy fraternity.

The first
time my son came home with illiterate comments on his school papers, I
gasped. How was he supposed to learn
correct lessons if his school work revealed his instructor’s ignorance?

Little
pitchers may, infamously, have big ears, but little eyes absorb—and copy—every image
they see, too. In fact, they magnify
those images because they come with grades for THEM.

Thus, the
first test for teachers appears right in the margins on every student’s
papers. Take that dictionary down, and
check the instructor’s spelling. Fact-check
that work like an editor.

No need for
argument exists when the proof comes right into parents’ hands. Create a
portfolio of the student’s work, which will be valuable for all concerned.

Listen when teachers
speak at meetings and conferences, too.
Are they speaking nonsense? Ask
permission to record presentations and lessons when parents are allowed to
visit classes.

As the costs
of education increase, parents can accept responsibility for ensuring their
hard-earned dollars accomplish school districts’ stated objectives. No lesson is more important this this: Monkey See, Monkey Do.

Check those
textbooks, too, pulling out as many dictionaries and encyclopedias as
needed. Texts with political agendas CANNOT
replace those famous THREE R’s:
Responsibility, Responsibility, Responsibility.

Parents who
do not stop illiterate teachers in their tracks must accept the bill for the
failures to come. Employers cannot afford
to accept apologies, either. It’s NOW OR
NEVER for them.

College
instructors CANNOT redo twelve years of mistakes.
They CANNOT even begin to teach students who come to them without an
adequate foundation in Math, Reading, and Writing.

If responses
to questions about inadequate teacher preparation consist of indignation and
excuses, yank that kid out of that school ASAP.
It is NOT the parent’s responsibility to keep teachers happy.

So,
overseeing homework means much, much more than helping Junior or Sis with
projects. In fact, if a majority of a
student’s assignments consist of pictures and collections, that class is
already off the Math, Reading, and Writing track.

This task of
oversight need not be overwhelming. Just
set aside time on weekends, right along with time for sports and
entertainment. Families thrive when they
learn together, and the time for learning is ALWAYS NOW.

In my son’s
case, the next step was interviewing the principal at another school. She couldn’t believe her eyes when he pulled
out his paperback copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

He looked
sheepish, since he carried it in his jeans’ pocket, where it had suffered
considerable damage. She turned to me
with a steely glare. This one wasn’t
going to get away, it said.

“Are you
looking for a school or shopping?” she asked me.

“Can you keep
him safe and give him honest grades?” I asked her.

Since I declared
that shopping was not on my schedule that day, she agreed that a school cannot
function otherwise. That principal and
my son set off down that hall fast, afraid that Mom might change her mind.

We kept our
bargain. Never did I have to consult
with her about illiterate comments on papers.
Never did I see projects in place of papers and math problems and as
many books as my son could carry.

Neither one
of us expected to be popular in this mortal life. She was the disciplinarian at her school. My son was mad
for a considerable period of time about switching schools.

What can I
say? Better well-read than dead. She kept him physically, intellectually, and spiritually
alive. Both of us considered our duties
a sacred calling.

The only time
she smiled at me occurred when I purchased a bee-hive candle for her. THAT was my son’s going-away present when he
left for high school. Some make it, and
some do not. I assume she planned, as
usual, to maintain the light.

So we
succeeded at more than we bargained for.
At his high school, one of his teachers used my son to correct other
students’ papers. He became a
lawyer. Perhaps, teaching never seemed
to him an honest game.

Parties for
dressing up pugs—with those monkey faces—are just the beginning of a nation
gone mad, I concluded. MY pug didn’t
need gray flannels and a navy blazer to prove he was a man!

Then, of
course, I purchased a cockalier, who has ideas of his own. This dog cannot wait to don the latest
apparel for his clan—so I bought him a tartan shirt, and he won’t take it off!

His wardrobe
now includes the following:

A Harris
tweed overcoat for winter (so ice won’t clog his fur)

A cable knit
sweater (because he likes those Celtic designs)

A hooded
parka vest (which he prefers to wear sans hood)

A leopard
print sweat shirt (for those chilly spring and fall days)

A
full cat-suit of pajamas (He HATES two-piece pajamas! He also LOVES cats!)

And that
dynamite tartan all-purpose tartan shirt (He’s SO proud of that masculine
collar!)

The first
time I took him outside in that shirt, he barked as usual at a delivery
man. The poor worker had to ask: “Will he bite?”

To which I
answered: “No, he’s just so happy in his
new shirt!”

The man didn’t
even blink. He just slobbered: “Awww!
Isn’t he ADORABLE?”

So much for
American culture. It’ll get you in the
end. A nation of dog-nuts, that’s what
we are. And our dogs think they’re
human, of course. Mine prefers brown
sugar Pop-Tarts to dog treats. He eats
raw carrots, too, because he’s heard they’re good for him.

I can’t even
bring myself to apologize for his attitudes.
Every time he barks, I know he’s on the job. He’s never heard of unemployment—and wouldn’t
believe in it, if he had.

He lies at
the door—in his shirt, of course—with his nose to the crack of air. He’s tracking the scents coming from down the
street and across town. He doesn’t trust
anybody except me.

He’s the best
security system in the world. If I’d
been born in another country, I wouldn’t know this, but I do because I am a
100% patriotic American dog nut, just like the rest of my fellow citizens, who
keep dog clothiers in business.

My dog’s
relatives have served in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even down in local swamps where
children sometimes escape to drive their human parents crazy. He and his associates converse under their
breath all night while we sleep soundly.

He doesn’t
have a retirement plan. He has no social
security whatsoever. So, if he wants to
eat Pop-Tarts while wearing his favorite shirt in my living room, I will sit
right beside him, and yip, “Your name is Loyalty—when it’s not Babe Ruth!”

Politicians
come and go. Babe Ruth STAYS. He even shakes on command.--and not just because
he’s determined to get dirt out of his wardrobe. He takes this woman seriously. He takes every cry and moan he hears
seriously—even from way over town.

So, I
understand now. He wears clothes because
he’s joined the human species. He EARNS
his Pop-Tarts, too. He NEVER takes
down-time unless I’m down, too. The rest
of the time, he makes me laugh because, as a ball-player, he won’t quit anymore
than Babe Ruth.

Parents
seeking ways to divorce their kids from that computer need look no
farther. Just plug them into Richard
Scarry’s books. Begin with I Am A Bunny at age one or two, and that
child will learn to read along with the best friends in the world.

His classic
works continue the artist’s rendering of human character through animals, made
famous by Aesop. Scarry’s imagination
extends this menagerie to worms and pie-rats.
His drawings not only illustrate his stories, but also illustrate how to
draw, focusing on lines.

These books
also tempt that child into the outside world, where s/he must learn
vocabulary. In addition, they convey the
sense of community. Truck drivers and
fire personnel whiz down the streets of his residence, which always carries the
address Busy Town.

What better
way to keep that child busy, too—instead of screaming outside or punching
noise-makers which drive the neighbors bonkers?
His classic treatments of equipment, vehicles, and words lend themselves
easily to related activities—drawing, exploring—walking and walking.

If that child
doesn’t make it outside, s/he won’t know it exists. Scarry brings the outside inside, and never
lets his audience forget interaction.
Characters function in ensembles here, illustrating, too, the very
nature of friends and family.

I Am A Bunny demonstrates how this interaction
begins before a child can even make sentences.
Here is Amazon’s brief synopsis:

“I am a bunny. My name
is Nicholas. I live in a hollow tree.

In the spring, Nicholas likes to sniff the
flowers, and in the summer, watch the frogs in the pond. In the fall, he
watches the animals getting ready for winter, and in winter, watches the snow
falling from the sky. This beautifully illustrated, gentle story is one of
Golden’s most beloved titles.”

Community begins
with a sense of humanity’s interaction with Nature. Every flower, frog, animal, and snowflake
lives in the same world children do. Cherish
books which teach this lesson first.
They supply the foundation which yields compassionate and responsible
citizens.

But cherish
these books, too, because they don’t preach or indoctrinate. They just invite a child into the wonder of a
world too curious and fantastic to ignore or misunderstand. Humor arises naturally here, too—the result
of the author’s sly eye when he knows children like his very own.

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About Me

The author leads a quadruple life as a creative writer, journalist, medievalist, and artist. From Western New York, she gained insights into wildlife and spiritualism. In Appalachia, she learned to love America's oldest mountains. She has settled happily, with a tuxedo cat named Chopin and a Basset Hound named Mickey Mantle, in Dunkirk, New York.